Motivational Quotes

Quotations

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Best Quotes about Quotations

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.

Edwin P. Whipple

I must claim the quoter's privilege of giving only as much of the text as will suit my purpose, said Tan-Chun. If I told you how it went on, I should end up by contradicting myself!

Cao Xueqin

Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.

Benjamin, Walter

Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

Ambrose Bierce

A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion.

Robert Chapman

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

Brendan Francis

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.

Robert Benchley

I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.

Fadiman, Clifton

A book of quotations . . . can never be complete.

Robert M. Hamilton

10.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

11.

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?

Philip G. Hamerton

12.

When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, and opening quotation is a symphony precluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.

Disraeli, Benjamin

13.

Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

14.

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

15.

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.

Marlene Dietrich

16.

Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.

Hesketh Pearson

17.

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied,'Verify your quotations.'

Sir Winston Churchill

18.

We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our white mythology. Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.

Hassan, Ihab

19.

Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.

Debord, Guy

20.

I never have found the perfect quote. At best I have been able to find a string of quotations which merely circle the ineffable idea I seek to express.

Caldwell O'Keefe

21.

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Roux, Joseph

22.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

George Bernard Shaw

23.

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.

H. L. Mencken

24.

I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things.

Dorothy Parker

25.

Be careful -- with quotations, you can damn anything.

Andre Malraux

26.

Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.

Hesketh Pearson

27.

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

David H. Comins

28.

Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely-read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.

Pearson, Hesketh

29.

Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.

Simeon Strunsky

30.

Fidelity to the subject's thought and to his characteristic way of expressing himself is the sine qua non of journalistic quotation.

Malcolm, Janet

31.

I pick my favorite quotation and store them in my mind as ready armor, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.

Burns, Robert

32.

I didn't really say everything I said.

Yogi Berra

33.

He wrapped himself in quotations -- as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

Kipling, Rudyard

34.

In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually read; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.

Selden, John

35.

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

Alfred North Whitehead

36.

If you have any doubts that we live in a society controlled by men, try reading down the index of contributors to a volume of quotations, looking for women's names.

Elaine Gill

37.

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.

Orson Welles

38.

Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism -- victimless collecting, as it were... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments.

Sontag, Susan

39.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

40.

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

41.

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

Anatole France

42.

There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.

Pierre Bayle

43.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Samuel Johnson

44.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

Seneca

45.

The next best thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

46.

That is the point of quotations. One can use another's words to be insulting.

Cross, Amanda

47.

Why are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have not the time nor means to get more.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

48.

A book that furnishes no quotations is no book -- it is a plaything.

Peacock, Thomas Love

49.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

William Feather

50.

Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.

Edward Young